Wired : How Edouard Salier Turned the World Upside-Down for Justice’s ‘Civilization’

2011-06-08

His most real, and conversely most unrealistic, music video to date is for Justice‘s “Civilization,” a mesmerizing clip that shows the world’s greatest wonders, from Mount Everest to Brazil’s Christ the Redeemer statue, crashing to the ground in one brilliant, catastrophic moment. With plenty of bison.

Previously, Salier made a music video for Massive Attack‘s “Splitting the Atom” that looks like a futuristicSin City, yet seems to have tangible textures. His similarly black-and-white-and-creepy-all-over video forAir‘s “So Light Is Her Footfall” starts out in reality before spiraling into a scene out of an M.C. Escherpiece set in a hall of mirrors.

To break down how he made the “Civilization” clip, Salier spoke at length to The Creators Project (a partnership between Intel and Vice/VBS.tv). In the “making of” video below, he shows how an idea can go from his initial sketches to his CGI engineers to final product. He also discusses his work on commercials and short films.